Hrt an^ /iDones 



art, holding inviolate the duty which binds 

 the compact between the artist and those 

 upon whom his art is cast as a bread of 

 life, gives the sacred joy after which every 

 inspired soul goes seeking in the golden 

 region of creative life. It is the joy of the 

 bird in the green grove, the joy of the bee 

 in the season of honey-flowers, the passion 

 of gathering and combining in the heat of 

 inspiration, in the rapture of imagination. 



Tantus amor florum, et generandi gloria mellis. 



Tennyson, the noblest poet since Shak- 

 spere, has shown us how this undeviating 

 devotion to art through a long lifetime 

 can round up the stature of a great man. 

 As that distinct something which we call 

 a great personality, we must regard Alfred 

 Tennyson above all the Englishmen of his 

 time. He affected more powerfully a 

 greater audience than any man in the 

 world born within the past century and a 

 half. Carlyle, Gladstone, Goethe, Napoleon, 

 Browning, Bismarck — not one of them has 

 touched and influenced half as many souls 

 as the great dreamer of " In Memoriam," 

 i68 



